


Wake Up Call

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: prompt: Mulder and Scullys little girl crawls into their bed every night to sleep between her parents.





	Wake Up Call

It wasn’t so long ago that she slipped under an ivory Egyptian cotton sheet and pulled a pale gold and cream jacquard duvet over her slender body. She was toned from her regular personal training session with Scot, drowsy from her evening red, sad from the latest sappy romance she’d taken to reading. But she was always ready to sleep in her king-sized bed.

Now, she was lucky to snag a corner of the queen she shared with Mulder, who slept like he lived: passionately, loudly and selfishly. And then there was Esther. A chubby-limbed mini Mulder with sandy curls and a curious mind that whirred into action at 4am and wouldn’t rest until all ‘but, daddy whys’ had been satisfactorily answered.

The current pattern involved Esther dragging Pearlie, the tattered soft rabbit, along the passageway by one ear so that its only surviving glass bead eye clicked over the floor boards. She would make a play of knocking at the door but was usually halfway through it when one of them answered. Esther hadn’t yet mastered the complexities of social etiquette, much like her father. She jumped in headfirst, or rather, lifted up the duvet from the bottom and crawled through headfirst, over toes and knees and sometimes tender parts of daddy’s anatomy, which would elicit a sharp cry from Mulder, followed by a ‘good thing we only planned for one miracle child, punk.’ Punk - punkin - pumpkin. Nicknamed for the season of her birth or the size of Scully’s belly, she was never quite sure.

Esther’s milk-sweet kisses, her breathy puffs of short sentences, her throaty gurgling giggles when King Tick let loose in a full-fingered assault, were as natural and routine now as a laundry full of unironed clothes, a kitchen bench full of crumbs and cups and milk carton caps, an evening of Dr Seuss and raspberry bubble baths. Pressed bedlinen and hours on the treadmill were a memory of another time, an emptier time.

Scully rolled to face her daughter, pushing her hair out of her eyes and kissing her sticky nose.

“Daddy is still sleeping, we need to be quiet.”

“M'wake,” Mulder said and wrapped an arm over them both.

“Squatch today, Dadda.”

Scully laughed gently. “It’s raining, Esther. Maybe tomorrow.”

Esther squirmed and lifted the cover with her tumbling limbs, so Scully’s feet got a chill blast of dawn air. “Dadda says Squatch loves rain.”

Mulder chuckled. His fingers traced the nape of her neck and Scully closed her eyes, lulled by the rhythm.

“Dadda says Momma loves the rain too.”

After they got up, Esther’s squeals echoing down the stairs, Scully slid across to the centre of the bed and curled herself up in the duvet, letting the warmth from their bodies seep into her bones. The pitter-patter of the rain comforted her and she fell into the heaviness of sleep, thinking how much she really did love the rain.


End file.
